This course will explore the forces that led to the 9/11 attacks and the policies the United States adopted in response. We will examine the phenomenon of modern terrorism, the development of the al Qai'da ideology, and the process by which individuals radicalize towards violence.

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Week 7: September 12, 2001

In this final week of the course we’ll speak with Juan Zarate , one of the key White House counter terrorism advisers in the second Bush administration, about US counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. We’ll look at the current state of threats to US interests from emerging actors, such as ISIS. Finally, we’ll look at the recent developments in the Middle East that affect US security.

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David Schanzer

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So this horrific organization, ISIS, that we learned in the prior lecture has taken territory, has swept into eastern Syria and northern Iraq, what is it that they believe? What is their ideology? What are their ideas that motivate them to engage in these horrific acts? As we learned, they had a historical linkage with al Qaeda, so it's not at all surprising that they have certain commonalities in their ideology. Both organizations believe that the West is at war with Islam and Muslims and is suppressing them. And second, that they both desire to have a governance of some sort under 7th century interpretation of Islamic law. And they reject all current law, man-made law, whether it's from a democracy or other form of government. Because it's not law that's made from God. They also believe that those that do not abide by these strict practices from the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. That those individuals are not true Muslims, even if they call themselves Muslims today. They also believe that the use of violence against civilians, civilian populations, to establish this governance under Islamic law is religiously justified. Indeed, they would argue religiously mandated. And that those who die to try to further this cause, this concept, this idea, that those individuals will be rewarded in the afterlife. But there are a lot of differences between al Qaeda and ISIS. So let me focus on those. First of all, ISIS prioritize this concept of the caliphate. A caliphate that had not existed since the height of the Ottoman Empire. And even those who believed in even stricter ideas would say that there hadn't been a real caliphate for many, many centuries. Because they didn't believe in the legitimacy of the Ottoman Empire or that it was sufficiently religious. In any event, they believe that this whole concept of having territory where Muslim law was in primacy was central to the whole religion of Islam. And that an individual, part of their Islamic duty and part of their Islamic experience was to actually pledge loyalty to this caliph. They believed the caliph must be from the Qurayshi tribe and the al Baghdadi, who declared himself to be the caliph, was indeed a Qurayshi, whereas bin Laden Was not. They believed that they could not only establish a caliphate, but it was a religious duty to expand the caliphate through the use of force. This concept of offensive jihad, where they would use violence to expand the caliphate, and against all the oppressors, non-Muslims, who they believe were apostates. And they also don't believe in the, they call themselves a state, but they don't believe even in the concept of borders. Because borders mean that you have some sort of other nation-state. And they don't respect the process that brought about these nation-states. So they don't respect any borders in the international sphere. And took great pride in the notion that they erased the border between Iraq and Syria where they took control. This idea of the caliphate, of creating a society governed by Islamic law, required not just the recruitment of males who are willing to fight, fight and die for this cause. But also the recruitment of women. Women to have society functioning, to have them reproduce and create the next generation of people to populate this state. To do all kinds of functions in the society. Very different from Al-Qaeda, which was very closed, very secretive, and rarely included women in any of their activities. And to have a functioning state, a functioning society, ISIS believe strongly in the training of young children to become fighters. Indoctrinating them at a incredibly young age to be essentially willing to be martyrs for the cause. And to believe in this extreme ideology that ISIS was spreading. This caliphate, this piece of territory where this kind of different, and to outside viewers absurd, but to insiders deeply meaningful type of Islamic experience, was a great attraction to foreign fighters. Tens of thousands coming from the region, coming from Europe. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims around the world are horrified by what they saw in ISIS and had no attraction to this ideology. But people on the fringes of society were attracted to this idea, a place they could go to have a new, what they would believe were some sort of genuine Islamic experience. And that's why ISIS grew so much strength and power from this recruitment of outside foreign fighters and of Westerners, women, young women as well. Coming to try to create this state, this new thing that was being created. This caliphate was also necessary to have territory to actually have some sort of infrastructure in which to implement this 7th Century interpretation of sharia law. So very quickly the Islamic State creates institutions, government agencies, courts to enforce law, to inflict certain types of a penal punishment, police forces. So whereas Bin Laden would talk about this idealized Islamic society sometime in the future that he believed force should be used to bring about, ISIS actually made it happen. And they created the caliphate as a mechanism for showing how it could be done, and then implementing it in actual practice. More about this implementation of this 7th Century sharia, understand the term sharia means Islamic law. But it's the interpretation of Islamic law that matters. And that is very different through many times in history, in many places in the world today. What American Muslims believe is sharia is very, very different from the sharia that is practiced in Saudi Arabia. And then certainly, what was implemented in the Islamic State. So they interpret sharia law in the harshest, most literalistic reading of what they believe are Koranic text and mandates that come from ancient document. That is the basis for ISIS's rule of law in this caliphate that it created. So it enforced all different aspects of what it interpreted to be the practices at the time of the Prophet. This includes penal law but also family law, who can get married, divorce, marital relations, the duties of women, social customs, personal behaviors. Religious police, requiring, measuring the lengths of people's beards, enforcing a strict covering of women with almost absolutely, not even virtually an air hole for their face and eyes. And the sharia not only has these harsh punishments, but as interpreted by ISIS, some positive like social welfare requirements. That people are to be provided for food, housing, clothing in this Islamic state. So again, all of these things happening in real time under ISIS, where they were really only talked about and imagined by Al Qaeda. ISIS also takes this notion of takfir to an extreme, previously unknown position. They apply the notion of takfiri to all Shia, saying that the Shia are not real Muslims. Of course, because Shia Islam did not exist at the time of the Prophet. It was the result of a succession battle that takes place after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. But even Sunni Muslims, they would say if you're not practicing Islam in the way that it was being practiced in the 7th Century, with all the different customs and social mores and practices and penal punishments that I mentioned previously, then those people as well are apostates. And those people could even be killed for not following those practices, even if they were Sunni Muslims. And that is the genesis of some of these barbaric forms of violence like beheadings, crucifixions, immolations. To punish these apostates that ISIS inflicted upon groups like the Yazidis in the Kurdish bordering areas of the Islamic state. People who are captured, hostages from other countries, people they did not believe fit their definition and version of what a Muslim was. Just one example of these horrific practices in this photo. Another aspect of ISIS that is very different is that they are definitely an apocalyptic group. Bin Ladin didn't really talk about the end of days or some sort of notion of an apocalypse. But ISIS sees Everything they're doing is building towards a glorious, violent ending of not only Muslim and Islam, but of the whole world. And they believe that a Mahdi will come to lead Muslims to victory at a time before the end of days. And there'll be a giant conflagration, giant fight between what they called Rome, but that probably represents the entirety of the West. In a giant battle with the Islamic State, the fighters, in a town called Dabiq, Syria. Indeed, they went to great lengths to capture Dabiq because of this reason, during the Syrian civil war. And ultimately they believe that once they are victorious, that that is when the ultimate apocalypse will occur. And the world will ultimately end. So they see that being part of a grand march of history. Another big difference, and while you might think of ISIS as being barbaric and ancient, which in many ways they are, they also were masters of social media in a way Bin Laden never was. Bin Laden tried to be, but all Qaeda was an underground organization, it was hard to find. It was not open, it did not exist in any one single place, and it still doesn't today. ISIS was a proto-state, it had a territory and a location. And it wanted to attract a many people as possible to come and join them. And they have used a very powerful Twitter network, and other forms of social media, to communicate with people abroad, to try to persuade them to come. If not to come, to support them in one way, shape, or form. And this has been a very powerful social networking tool that has made ISIS the power that it is today. And a force that the United States, the West, and all of the states in the Middle East have no choice but to reckon with.